AfterLife
by anja-chan
Summary: At the moment of what should be his triumph, Light discovers that all did not go exactly as planned. And a Death God, Kei, wonders about apples--are they really red and juicy? Begins after episode 25. Twin story to Tobi Tortue's AfterLife. Light's POV.
1. Prologue

**AfterLife**

**Prologue**

----K----

November 16th, 2007

_The pain in his heart was shocking. He hadn't expected this… this… whatever this was. He was a god and gods did not die. He was justice and justice was eternal. _

He held the blood red fountain pen in his hand, the winged death god crouching in the shadows behind him like some grotesque angel. The sky was black, cloudy, and the wind was fierce at the top of L's nearly abandoned skyscraper. After all, L Lawliet, his greatest rival and the world's greatest detective had been dead for eleven days.

Even now, Light could barely believe his victory had come. Of course, that had been inevitable; as clever as Ryuuzaki might have been, Light always had more information, more options, more _power_. Ryuuzaki and the investigation team had been forced to work inside the bounds of the law like average mortals… Light, however, was different.

"So, you've completely settled the score with L, eh?"

Ryuk's rumbling voice snatched Light out of his thoughts and back to the present. The chill night wind rippled through his shirt and ruffled his hair. His right hand still held the pen. He had bought it earlier that day after having lunch with Misa. He would be Kira again, and L could no longer stop him. It seemed fitting that he could indulge himself in a new pen.

"Yeah."

"Guess I won't have much fun to look forward to then." The death god sounded annoyed at his future prospects. Light held back an arrogant laugh, remembering to always treat his larger and stupider associate with respect.

"That's not true at all, Ryuk," Light began easily, catching the death god's attention with his soft tones. He took a breath, and began speaking resolutely. "From here on… I'm going to show you the reincarnation of a new world."

"Oh?" came the death god's surprised, gravelly voice. He sat up and leaned forward in anticipation.

Lightning flashed suddenly, the thunder ricocheting off the multitude of buildings. Light smiled, and adjusted his grip on the red pen.

Indeed the pen was mightier than the sword. From here, he could eliminate every criminal known, discover those who lurked hidden in dark alleys, punish them for their misdeeds, and even prevent others through fear of Kira from following in those wicked footsteps. Standing above the festering city, he would judge from on high, smiting like the god he was so close to becoming. No one could stop him now.

Lightning streaked across the cloud-stricken sky again. The intensity of the earth's natural elements fit Light's overpowering mood and the dramatic nature of his actions. There before him was the Death Note. He had placed it on a black matte music stand, something he had found earlier in the day in one of the plethora of rooms of L's building. Now that Ryuuzaki was not there to watch him, he helped himself freely to the secretive detective's personal spaces. And the rest of the investigation team was a joke; none of them found it odd that Light would give them all the day off so he could wander the empty building alone, searching every nook and cranny for hints of Ryuuzaki's true identity. After taking Rem's Death Note, he had discovered Ryuuzaki's name and of course he knew the man's face, but how little that seemed to reflect the genuine man. The few items he had found that he would bring to his new apartment were currently sitting in a single box near the front doors and were all related to the Kira case, except a small, plush, black cat. He had no idea what it signified, but planned on deciphering its importance at his leisure.

Right now, however, it was time to get to work.

Light lifted the fountain pen in a graceful arc, admiring the beauty of his perfection and that of the new world he was creating. Lightning burst across the November sky, thundering out a symphony of the gods in accompaniment. Pen raised, the brilliant youth was its conductor. Light was in his element; Judgment Day had come.

He bent over the music stand, flicking back the cover and flipping to a blank page almost instantly. He had memorized a dozen names and faces of recent criminals, those guilty of some of the most heinous crimes: manslaughter and rape, usually tied in with robbery. He began with the first one: Polline de Merringuet, for killing her boyfriend and their two-year-old son. Next, Prosciuff Kleane, for stabbing a couple to death. Ziri—

"Light."

At the mention of his name, Light paused in his writing, the names and faces whirling through his mind chaotically. That voice had belonged to Ryuuzaki. The feeling of someone other than Ryuk watching him sunk into his spine. Dare he acknowledge this feeling and turn to face Ryuuzaki's ghost?

No. He put the pen back to the paper. Ziri Pa—

"Light Yagami." Footsteps echoed from directly behind him, now along with his full name. Ryuk chuckled. Light stiffened in horror. There _was_ someone behind him, otherwise Ryuk would not have found the situation so amusing. Light had no choice; he turned around.

The ghost stood not two meters from him, just as Light remembered him. Light wore his mask carefully, watching the slight detective and giving away no hints of sudden surprise. The wind ruffling the unruly black hair, billowing the white shirt, pressing the oversized jeans against the side of bent legs. Ryuuzaki looked the same as always, a slightly dazed expression on his face, but eyes like black holes. Those eyes held Light transfixed for a moment, but then movement from the darkness near the door to the stairs caught his attention. Four men in suits stood there, the instantly recognizable forms of the remaining members of the investigation team. He looked back to Ryuuzaki.

If the team really was here and if Ryuuzaki was still alive, he had to act quickly. No time to ponder how and why his rival was standing there before him; he needed a plausible lie for having the Death Note.

"Ryuuzaki… is it really you?" Light let his voice tremble, as if he could hardly believe that his 'friend' was truly alive. Let them converse a little, give himself time to think. His mind shifted into high gear, the possible solutions swirling. Testing it? No, too obvious and he had not asked permission from the rest of the investigation. Wait, they did not know whether it was a Death Note or not. After all, his own father had hidden the only one that belonged to the team. Best to say it was something else if asked and focus on Ryuuzaki's reappearance.

"Yes," Ryuuzaki replied carefully. Silence reigned as the older man tried to pierce through the back of Light's skull. Light gave nothing away, and yet, Ryuuzaki broke the quiet with a single word, "…Kira."

Ryuuzaki began moving forward. Light knew Ryuuzaki had supposed what was lying on the music stand, and that he must prevent the detective from verifying it.

"Kira?" Light asked, placing a befuddled look on his face, watching Ryuuzaki. He allowed a look of small surprise to show on his face a moment later. "Oh, I see how you could become confused: this is a black notebook, but it's not a Death Note."

Light gestured to the open notebook behind him, and knocked it off the edge of the building, as if by accident. He could recover it later, but he could not let it fall into the Ryuuzaki's hands or he would be condemned immediately, no matter what excuse he could spring.

"Shit!" Light yelled, making a futile grasp for the music stand. He caught himself just in time so that he did not overbalance and fall off the building himself, making it seem like he had not been aware of just how near he was to the edge. Stopping with one knee on the ground and a hand outstretched over the open air, Light noticed Ryuuzaki had dashed forward, but stopped short, presumably realizing the hopelessness of the situation. The music stand and notebook were now far below and out of sight. Light peered over the edge in seeming desperation for his fallen belongings.

"Mogi, please go fetch the notebook. I would like the rest of you to remain here so we may apprehend Light now," came the low monotone from the detective. Light heard Ryuuzaki's soft thwacks of his bare feet as he backed a few steps away from Light. Was it fear that made him retreat?

"Oh no, Mogi, don't bother yourself with it. It's just my personal journal. I'll get it myself," Light said, standing and turning around. He kept an easy smile on his face, assuring everyone of his good nature. "After all, I'm the one who was clumsy enough to—"

"It is a Death Note. Get it now, Mogi," Ryuuzaki cut him off, his voice commanding. Mogi turned abruptly, practically throwing himself through the door. Light opened his mouth, but before he could get in a word in his defense, Ryuuzaki continued, still backing away. "Yagami, Matsuda, Aizawa, please attempt to arrest Light now."

"Surely that's not necessary, Ryuuzaki," Light tried, still smiling. "I know nothing I do will make you stop suspecting me, but you've already said you can no longer keep me as your prisoner. I've passed all your tests. We all know I can't be Kira. Why don't we celebrate the fact that you are alive instead, Ryuuzaki?" Light took a step towards the detective, and softened his expression and tones. "I can still hardly believe my eyes."

"I have disproved the thirteen day rule," Ryuuzaki said. Light blinked. "In moments, Mogi will return with the proof."

"Proof? What kind of proof would he have?" Light was still acting casual, as if this whole experience was not his worst nightmare coming true. There had to be a way out of this.

"You and I both know that it was another Death Note," Ryuuzaki stated simply, his black eyes daring him to argue.

"Looks like he's caught you there, Light." Ryuk's following guffaw irritated Light. He would not be cornered like this. All the obstacles had been removed, Ryuuzaki had been dead….

Ryuuzaki continued speaking. "Yagami," he began and Light realized he was addressing his father, "I am sorry. However…."

"Yes, I understand," Souichiro said, sighing heavily.

"I can't believe it!" Matsuda's anguished voice flew across the rooftop. "Light is Kira?!"

"Don't be silly; of course I'm not Kira," Light attempted, but then turned towards the ex chief of police wearing an expression of hurt. "Father, after everything I've done to help with this case, you certainly don't believe Ryuuzaki either, do you?"

The man looked away, unable to meet his son's eyes. Ryuk laughed again, his whole misshapen form writhing and shuddering.

"Father?" Light's voice trembled uncertainly. Damn, everyone seemed to be wrapped around Ryuuzaki's little finger. How had this happened? Weren't they working for him? Wasn't he supposed to be L now? He could only hope that someone had already taken the notebook when it fell. Then a new race would begin, he and Ryuuzaki would both want to be first to find it, but Light's world would have to wait. Damn, he needed Ryuuzaki to die.

"I am sorry, Yagami," L stated. It sounded exactly the opposite. He needed Ryuuzaki to die. It didn't matter too much now how it happened. A strong gust of wind to push him off the roof? Light turned around, bringing his hands up to his chest, as if he couldn't understand that his friend and father both believed him to be a murderer.

A phone rang. From the sound, Light guessed it was from Ryuuzaki's pocket.

The rustle of clothes, the click of a flipping open a phone, and then Ryuuzaki's voice.

"Yes?"

Perfect, just the kind of distraction he needed. Quickly and with as little movement from his shoulders as possible, he opened the secret compartment within his watch. He pricked himself carefully with the needle, and began writing, _'L Lawliet, falls from building.' _He dipped the needle again into the small drop of blood on his finger._ '16-11-07. 10:47pm.' _He closed the compartment, satisfied. One minute until Ryuuzaki's death…

"Yes. Please inform Yagami of this. I am handing the phone to him now," Ryuuzaki finished. Light turned back around, curious now as to who was calling and how exactly Ryuuzaki would die. It would take him several seconds of actual falling, so he would have to begin the long drop shortly.

Ryuk laughed again. Light ignored him, as always. "Hey, Light, have you forgotten the rules already?"

Rules? Which one? Light thought frantically as his father took the phone from Ryuuzaki and answered it. The sinking realization hit Light like someone had gutted him with a knife. The name 'L Lawliet' had already been written down by Rem and to no effect. As a god of death, Rem would have known Ryuuzaki's real name, so the only way he could have survived would be if his name had already been written down… which would also mean that Ryuuzaki would _not_ fall off the building.

"Mogi?" his father questioned into the phone, as if afraid of the truth. Shit! The truth… Mogi must have found the Death Note by now. Light felt Ryuuzaki's trap closing around him like a noose tightening. He tried to shake the unfamiliar feeling, remembering that he still couldn't show any emotion that might reveal he was Kira; he had to keep calm. There was still the possibility that Mogi had not necessarily found the Death Note… like when he was under surveillance, Ryuuzaki may report something false in order to gauge Light's reactions. This was the time to tread most carefully.

His father took a large intake of air, looking overcome by shock. Souichiro's eyes were still staring blankly ahead, but focused inward as he handed the phone blindly to Matsuda. Hesitantly, the young police officer put the phone to his ear, his eyes looking innocently straight at Light's face. Light watched it happen, the widening of his eyes, the gasp, the moment the phone he dropped the silver cell as if it burned him. It hit the concrete with a clatter and was followed shortly by Matsuda's knees. His gaze finally lowered from Light's face, his head hanging.

"Light…" Matsuda's broken voice was wretched in agony. "…why?"

"Oi, what's…" Aizawa began, reaching for the fallen phone. He stooped and picked it up, setting it to his ear. "Mogi?"

Aizawa's reaction was a muted form of Matsuda's. He did not fall or drop Ryuuzaki's phone, but his eyes, that's where Light could see into their souls. None of them wanted to believe that Light was Kira, and that's where perhaps he could find a way out. It was up to whether they trusted him or Ryuuzaki more... Light cursed silently. He could not play that card. After all, he had said that he trusted Ryuuzaki's judgement; he could not pretend that it didn't matter. And then there was the evidence that Mogi was bringing, if indeed the Death Note had not been already picked up a random stranger.

The wind rustled through Light's hair, cold and unforgiving. Thunder echoed angrily from the stormy heavens. Ryuuzaki had not fallen off the building… what were the options left? If Mogi returned with the note, he would be forced to kill everyone there, even if it meant overpowering Ryuuzaki and pushing him off with his own hands. Would Ryuk help him kill them all? No, he couldn't count on the Death God, unless it was directly for the red-eyed monster's benefit. Persuasion with apples and amusement?

Light took in the faces of the people he'd been working with over the last year. Besides Ryuuzaki, all of their faces were full of betrayal and anger. They believed Ryuuzaki's claims, because of what Mogi had told them. Could he kill them? His own father who had taught him about justice in the first place?

If things went any further, he would have no other choice. No other options. It was really their fault for trying to prevent Kira from his purpose.

His father's face suddenly softened dramatically, as if he had come to some kind of understanding. Light was suddenly hopeful; his father would be on his side. His father would never believe that his loving son would be Kira. The older man walked forward, coming to a halt right directly in front of Light's pained, yet hopeful expression. Light looked up at him, revealing a tentative smile. His father looked back, his smile saddened, as he put a comforting hand on Light's shoulder.

"Light… I'm sorry," he said. In his other hand, he lifted up a pair of handcuffs, attempting to place it on Light's wrist.

Light jerked back before the cold steel came into contact with his skin.

"F-father?" he tried, the words sticking in his throat. His own father would believe Ryuuzaki instead of him? There was no evidence yet. Just Ryuuzaki's constant suspicions and Mogi's agreement. There was no evidence.

"Looks like you've lost, Light," Ryuk said. The Death God sounded almost sad, but the hint of delight was still noticeable. Damn him, the beast was enjoying this. "Too bad, huh. But you've sure shown me some interesting times."

Light ignored the god, intent on his father. The man's eyes held tears, and his hands were trembling. Combined with the force of the wind, the metal links of the handcuffs clinked together in a perverse invitation.

The door opened. Light's eyes went wide… it was all over.

Mogi stood there, one hand clutching the Death Note as if he were afraid the wind would snatch it away. He moved forward urgently, the notebook held tightly to his chest. He glanced around wildly, focusing on Ryuk's massive form twitching with sudden laughter, then found Ryuuzaki's smaller hunched figure.

"Ryuuzaki…" he began tentatively. His eyes darted to Light, then back to Ryuuzaki who held out a hand, his dark eyes boring into Light. Souichiro turned around at the sound, startled by the intrusion.

Light couldn't move. He knew he had lost his mask, and this emotion he felt restricting his control was fear.

He had lost….

The notebook was passed off easily to Ryuuzaki as lightning flashed. The thunder pealed in its wake, the timpanis of a celestial orchestra. The detective looked carefully around with his large eyes, head tilting more than turning. They focused on Ryuk, who had the audacity to give the man a short wave.

He had lost….

"I have found the Death God," Ryuuzaki stated without real surprise, his ebony orbs still fixated on the grinning fiend to Light's left. Ryuuzaki shifted the Death Note to his other hand, still holding it in the peculiar way of his, and used his right to point in Ryuk's direction. His eyes, however, stayed locked onto Light's face, reading every bit of Light's emotions like an open book.

His father took a tentative step towards Ryuuzaki and the Death Note, but then rushed the remaining few steps. He pulled the note from Ryuuzaki's two-fingered hold wildly, then stared in horror at the malevolent grin of the Death God.

Ryuk turned his toothy smile to Light, his hulking body twisting. "Too bad, huh? It looks like our partnership is over."

His father gasped at the open admission of Light's guilt from the Death God and returned the note to Ryuuzaki's unusual grip, slowly sinking to his knees. His face held true agony, a portrait of utter incomprehension. The wind howled, chilling Light to the bone.

He had lost….

"What is it, chief?" Matsuda shouted over the wind. He pulled himself to his feet while simultaneously reaching for the note. As soon as his fingers brushed the black note, he stumbled backwards, a short intelligible cry of fear escaping from his lips. Aizawa came up patiently behind Matsuda, steadying the younger man's shoulders and then reached forward, pressing his palm against the smooth surface of Death Note. His eyes found Ryuk and then he pulled his hand back, a demonstration of orderly conduct after Matsuda.

One by one, the investigation team dragged their eyes from Ryuk, and followed Ryuuzaki's gaze to Light. Lightning cracked across the sky behind him, illuminating the familiar faces in stark relief, thunder cascading around them, making speech impossible for a moment. Light's symphony was reaching a crescendo and he realized suddenly that he was still conducting. So these five men knew he was Kira? Did they expect him to cower in fear forever? No, he was a shining leader of justice, supported by millions of people all over the world. He did not have to worry about five people who believed they could stop him. He was invincible; he was God.

Light relaxed, feeling his confidence and control return. He let his voice reflect his conviction and power. He looked his rival directly in the eyes, issuing the challenge.

"That's right. I am Kira."

Light felt a rush of exhilaration from his confession. What would L do now that they both knew who the other was without a doubt? L and Kira, standing not more than three meters apart, confronting each other. Neither would wish a physical fight, but Light was confident that if it came down to that, he could best the smaller detective. No, they would argue for their beliefs, argue for the correct view of justice. Ryuuzaki's face showed the hint of a smile and Light let his own smile grow wider; he would begin first, as he always had. He may not be able to change L's mind, but he could convince the rest of the investigation team to follow him if he played this correctly.

Light suddenly turned to face the darkness of the city behind him, looking out over the edge. He spoke clearly and levelly, letting the wind carry his words behind him.

"So… what will you do?" Light asked. He looked over his shoulder, making eye contact with L, "Kill me here?"

It was a dare, a challenge, and both of them knew that L could not simply do that. He watched for a reaction, but found nothing besides a glint of eager anticipation for what Kira would say next. Light turned back to the glimmer of the city below him.

"Listen…" he said quietly, letting the cacophony of thunder play around him before turning fully around again. "I _am_ Kira… the God of the new world."

He let his words sink in before continuing, knowing the words would come perfectly as they always did. His logic and persuasion was always flawless; soon they would come to understand that he had done everything for the worthy people of the world.

"In the world we live in today, Kira is law and protects order. Soon I will be justice, the hope of all mankind," Light intoned, spreading his arms wide and standing perfectly upright, as if he were vulnerable and inviting them to shoot, or accepting a gift from the heavens. "Are you going to kill me? Is that really okay?"

Light could see indecision working its way across the faces of his father, Matsuda, Aizawa, and even Mogi. He was creating believers simply with the force of his words. Now to seal them carefully so that they not only believed his words, but could justify his actions. The results were important, especially to the strong-minded police officers. It was time to show them the proof of the new world he was creating. He lowered his arms gracefully to his sides, fixing them all with a face full of earnesty.

"During the time Kira has existed, wars have ended and violence has nearly vanished," Light began giving them the evidence of Kira's promise for a better world, "but this world still needs help. There are still so many immoral people. Someone had to do something!"

Light paused, letting the ex-policemen identify with his feelings. After all, didn't they have the same goal as Kira? Stopping crime, finding the wicked and punishing them as required. Matsuda nodded cautiously, and Light was careful not to let a triumphant smile show on his face. Now to permit them to understand how and why he had behaved, and judge for themselves what their own actions would have been had they been selected.

"When I was given the notebook," Light began, still in earnest, letting his voice reach out, growing louder to persuade them of Kira's cause, "I realized it had to be me. Only I could do it. Even though I know killing people is a crime, there was no other way to make the world safer. That was the purpose given to me. Only I could do it… who else could have come this far?"

Light paused, calming himself a little, stepping back into his true persona of total power, total control. Ryuuzaki was still smiling, but Light had known from the start that he could not change L's mind. However, the other members of the investigation team were watching him with a sense of awe, almost wonderment. Matsuda looked ready to throw himself off the building if Kira were only to ask. Light was ready to wrap up his speech, throw them the last appealing words, secure his victory over L. He could hardly believe moments ago he had been so frightened by the stooped genius that he had frozen up. Nothing like that would ever happen again. Yes, he would use everyone here to lock up L and they would protect his secret to the grave, helping to create his ideal world. Light looked upon his people, and fixed an expression that asked for their understanding onto his flawless face. He let the temptation of perfection ring through his voice, the tragic beauty of what he tirelessly worked for gleam into the dark night and cut through the wind's harmony.

"To create a beautiful new world… only I could do it."

He had won….

"No, you are just a murderer." Ryuuzaki's voice was merciless and cut brutally through the enticing spell Light had woven. Matsuda gasped, looking stricken. His father looked down at the concrete as L completed his argument. "You are mistaken to think that you have become a God."

Light felt cheated. His ideals had left the team in awe, and now… L was twisting them around his finger again. Matsuda staggered back a step, and let out a yell of frustration and betrayal as Ryuk began cackling, raspy and rumbling. The youngest ex-officer pulled out his gun, and aiming desperately at the Death God, fired a shot off before Aizawa could stop him. The gunshot echoed like thunder on the rooftop and passed through the creature's left shoulder. Light watched, suddenly cautious, as Ryuk only laughed harder at the psychosis Matsuda was displaying. That instability was dangerous; there was no telling what he would do next. Perhaps he should have asked Matsuda to throw himself from the roof.

Matsuda's arm was quickly forced down by Aizawa who held the quivering man tightly. For the first time in several minutes, Ryuuzaki was not facing Light. Now was his chance to act, when all the attention was on Matsuda and his gun. Light turned to the edge, shielding his hands from view, and went for his watch again. There was still plenty of room on the piece of paper, easy for the point of a needle to write a few names. Matsuda would be first, as he was the most dangerous at this point. He opened the compartment and pricked his finger.

"His hands!" Ryuuzaki shouted suddenly from behind Light. Light didn't turn, now was his chance as they were subduing the crying youngest team member. Needle ready, Light began: Matsuda Tou—

Thunder cracked once, and Light felt his leg give out. He fell sideways, hitting the concrete and rolling onto his back. Somehow, he found himself staring straight into Ryuk's yellow and red eyes. The Death God was rapt with attention at the scene unfolding before him. Light snapped his gaze away as white-hot pain flooded into his right thigh. Unable to help himself, Light loosed a tortured howl and clutched at his leg, watching in shock as the blood began flowing out, staining his clothes, spattering on the concrete.

Anger and adrenaline flooded his system, stamping out the pain to a dull throb, and he jerked his head to focus on where Matsuda was standing behind Ryuuzaki's blocking hand, gun shaking. The rest of the team was rushing forward. His father reached his side first and he moved instantly to cradle his head protectively. Mogi and Aizawa reached him a second later, obstructing his view of Matsuda and Ryuuzaki and looking awkward after rushing over so quickly. Light shifted and sat forward to get a clearer view, bringing his bloodied left hand away from his leg and steadying himself on his father's arm.

"It's his watch!" Mogi yelled suddenly, yanking his arm up. Light cursed himself inwardly as his father cried out in parental concern. Jerking his arm back, Light discovered that Mogi was much stronger. The man succeeded in unclasping and wrenching the bloodied silver timepiece off his flexed wrist, the torn out paper from the Death Note catching in the wind. Light's hope fluttered for a moment—maybe the wind would take it away?—but a shoed foot from Aizawa killed Light's short-lived optimism.

Then Ryuuzaki was striding forward, and Light felt a spasm of fear penetrate his heart. For as long as he had worked with the detective, he had never seen him so calm and deadly. Terror tried to take hold, and Light found he couldn't fight it off. He was surrounded by L's investigation team formed specifically to capture him, a madman intent upon his destruction, and nowhere to run even if his leg would allow it. He had only one option left….

A deep, rolling thunder permeated the clouded night.

"Ryuk!" He shouted desperately, struggling to break free of the ex-policemen who held him firmly. The Death God was already watching him, a grin stretched across the entirety of his face, and he stood carefully before swooping down. Mogi dropped Light's arm in fear, backing away quickly from the beast. Light used the diversion to break from his father's grasp and rise to his feet, stooping nearly as much as Ryuuzaki in an effort to spare his leg.

"Write their names down!" he yelled, no longer caring about how he was perceived, staggering awkwardly to Ryuk's side. If this didn't work… he would be… he would have completely lost to L. He looked up into Ryuk's round eyes, pleading, ignoring the gasps that came from everyone around him. The wind howled, and Light did not move, waiting for Ryuk's reply.

The Death God reached slowly around and into a small bag attached to his belt. Time seemed to stand still as he withdrew another notebook, and a bone-colored pen that seems almost too small for his long claw-like fingers. Light's eyes widened. He _would_ win!

Ryuk opened the Death Note and began scratching down words. Uncontrollable laughter billowed up and erupted from Light's lips, dark and enjoyable. He had won! Even if L Lawliet could not be killed by Ryuk's Death Note, Light could do it with his bare hands… or perhaps Ryuuzaki did not have much time left. It had to have been before Rem's death, so at most Ryuuzaki would have twelve days left to live. Maybe Ryuuzaki appeared today because it was his last day. Light would win and he would rule his perfect world.

Refusing to acknowledge the mortals around him, Light kept his eyes on the god, watching him finish. The pen withdrew from the paper slowly, deliberately, and Light felt himself trembling. All the obstacles were removed….

Ryuk looked up, straight at Light, but his usual demeanor was absent. He was not smiling anymore.

"You've lost, Light."

Ryuk turned the notebook over, presenting his work to Kira. Shock flooded Light's system as he gazed at his own name, the thin black lines of kanji spelling out his death. Light heard nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing, but those words. He was… dying? No, that couldn't be happening. He had forty seconds… he knew that. After all this time, of course he knew how long he would have. Suddenly, Light understood that Kira no longer mattered to him. He was going to die, no matter how many criminals he could take down with him in these final moments. But what should he do with his last forty seconds? The seconds ticked by, surreal, too that he didn't even have his watch to figure his remaining time. What could he possibly….

"Didn't I tell you that when you die," Ryuk's low voice was soft enough to shake Light from his calm torment, "the one who'll write your name down in a notebook will be me? That is the deal between Death Gods and the first human to get their hands on the note in the human world."

Light nodded woodenly. Yes, he had known. The seconds ticked by. What could he possibly do…?

"Well, it was good while it lasted and we killed some boredom, didn't we? We did some pretty interesting things, huh, Light," Ryuk continued. He looked almost sad, but perhaps that was only because he knew the apples would no longer be tossed his direction, no clever and interesting humans to tag along after. Perhaps if he'd given Ryuk an apple before asking for the deaths of the investigation team? But it was useless, really, to ponder that now. He was still going to die… what could he possibly do in these…?

What could he possibly do in these last seconds?

The answer came quietly from the depths of his mind, still a tranquil center of calm. He could leave this world. Yes, he _would_ leave this lonely world behind him… and he would depart with his dignity intact. He would not fight Ryuk, not after it had been the Death God who had given him the opportunity to fix even a small piece of the broken world. Given this last opportunity, he would not be a sore loser.

"Ryuuzaki," he said, turning to face the detective. All trace of fear or anger had left the man, replaced with a slight downward curve to his lips and a flash of sorrow in his large dark eyes. Light realized suddenly that Ryuuzaki looked alone. Light gave him a small smile, understanding that they shared the same fate. It suddenly didn't matter that they were rivals. L would die within the next twelve days of a heart attack. Ryuuzaki mirrored Light's smile, but the slight detective still looked utterly abandoned.

"I only wish you could believe as I do. I would have you as my successor as I was nearly yours." The words were hard to say, and Light realized that he truly meant them. They were so similar, in almost every way… Ryuuzaki's sense of justice was so close to his own, his intelligence nearly identical, the way they understood each other, how they both loved the challenge, the chase, and had almost known from the very start each other's true identities of Kira and L.

"Ryuuza—wait, L Lawliet," Light said, deciding to speak to the actual man, not the fake pseudonym or the title. He looked deeply into the eyes of the detective, willing him to understand. "_We_ are justice."

How much time did he have left? His father… he needed to tell his father—

Ryuk's voice rasped lazily from Light's side, and it sounded like the monochrome Death God's humor was back. Light turned to the massive figure as he spoke.

"And don't forget… a human who uses the Death Note cannot go to Heaven or Hell. After you die, you'll see… _nothing_."

Light's heart jumped erratically, and his body convulsed momentarily. His hand automatically went to his chest. No, this couldn't happen already. He didn't want to die, gasped as he felt his mind receding, the pain from somewhere in his body flaring, then diminishing. He had accepted that it would happen, but no, forty seconds was surely longer… he needed to talk to his father, sinking to his knees, not feeling the cold of the November air, the edges of his vision fading black, Ryuk's wings stretching and beating as he disappeared, voices shouting distantly, something warm holding his shoulders….

"Dad…" Light muttered, but when he brought his weary gaze up, he only saw more darkness.

L's eyes… filled with tears… he was crying….

Light sank deeper down into the darkness, the nothingness, allowed it to gently pull him under, and closed his eyes.

_The pain in his heart was shocking. He hadn't expected this… this… whatever this was. He was a god and gods did not die. He was justice and justice was eternal…._

_Weren't they?_

----K----

* * *

Author's Note: Wondering how L managed to surprise Light on the top of the building? If you enjoyed this story, please read Tobi Tortue's fanfiction of the same title (that's AfterLife). It follows the same plot, but from L's point of view.

Please review if you like it, and especially if you did NOT like it. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you again after gasp the next chapter is posted...


	2. Chapter 1

**AfterLife**

**Chapter 1**

----K----

Everything was gray and infinitely boring. The rocks were gray, the sky was gray, the dirt was gray, the bones were gray, even the stunted apple trees were gray. The only thing that wasn't gray was the fresh blood that showed up every so often on the gray bits of metal and chain littered randomly about, but even that succumbed to the monochrome eventually. For as long as he could remember, Kei had been wandering across the gray landscape, so much that he too felt the grayness that permeated through his bones. There was never anything entertaining to do besides sit and gamble, or trek across the unchanging grayness, only to come back again. The most exciting thing was how the rocks towered into mountains at the edges of the wide, flat valley. He preferred sitting up there alone, but found himself coming down from the crags when the overwhelming stream of nothingness caught him.

Kei sighed in annoyance, causing Jastin to glance up from his skeletal hands holding the bone dice and the game they were playing.

"I was just about to toss them," the Jeweled Skeleton replied a little haughtily. "There's no need to be in a hurry."

The Death God released the four dice, two vaguely the shape of animal skulls, two formed like generic femurs, into the large stone bowel. No doubt it was also carved out of the surrounding rock, like everything else was. The bones clattered and rolled around, finally coming to rest with the two femurs touching each other, one of the skulls resting upright, the other on its side.

"Looks like I've beaten you again, Jastin," Kei said with a slight smile. His eyes glowed a deeper red from within their bone sockets. "A T-bone and a standing skull won't beat a pair of sleeping skulls."

"You're too good at this, Kei," Jastin retorted. He stood abruptly from the game and grabbed his own dice, stuffing them into a jewel-encrusted pouch at his waist. He turned and headed along the flats to join a different game where his chances would most likely be better.

Kei sighed again. If the most fun he could get out of life was cheating the other Death Gods at games of chance… he didn't finish the thought. They never bet on anything anyway, but he still found winning compelling. He stood, using his bone guitar-like scythe to help himself stand. Perhaps he would march back up towards the rocky face of the mountains, side-stepping the rib cages and chains that were the flora of this world.

When had life become so uninteresting? Why had he never noticed how unsatisfyed he felt in this unchanging land? The tedious monotony of a dead world, day after day, every one the same as the last….

So what else would Kei do? Was there anything he _could_ do?

Green jewel lenses glinted balefully from the goggles lying above his deep eye sockets, and Kei began walking. Without picking a direction, he found his boots taking him to the edge of the valley, past the hordes of other Death Gods. Looking around at them, Kei wondered if any of them ever felt the same way he did now… although he hardly knew what he was feeling. Some were sleeping, some gambling like he had been, some engaged in various conversations, and a few were simply staring off across the empty land. Were thoughts like his ever passing across their vacant faces?

Kei stepped over a proper-looking scythe that had tumbled from the grasp of a sleeping Death God and found himself facing the lonely trail that led up to the Orchard. He continued on—he might as well, there was nothing else to do—following the twists and turns the thin trail made. Kei supposed he could unleash his wings and get there faster, but the pointlessness of hurrying to a place he didn't care if he ever arrived at stopped him.

His feet continued to carry him along faithfully and he stopped thinking. Sometimes that was just easier.

Having no way to judge time and no interest in doing so, Kei was at the Orchard when he arrived. His mind began churning along slowly again as he walked over to the nearest stunted tree growing out of the rock. There were no apples on it and Kei supposed that was because it was the closest to the trail; any apples that had grown here would be the first ones picked by addicted Death Gods.

Kei had never really understood that addiction. Of course, he had tried the apples before, but never more than one at a time… the taste was too terrible. How anyone could eat enough to gain an addiction, Kei would never know.

The Orchard was not a real orchard either. None of the Death Gods tended to it, the trees growing of their own accord wherever they could manage to crumble some of the rocks into gray dust and implant their roots. Not even the trees themselves were aligned; they bent haphazardly, branches twisting and twining together. When the trees decided to bear fruit, it was a shriveled, nearly dead thing composed of mostly small black seeds.

At last, Kei paused at a tree, its knobby gray clutches trying to ward away thieves of its single wrinkled apple. Kei took it anyway, out of boredom, inspecting the withered fruit. He held it up to his jagged teeth and took a bite.

Disgusting.

Nevertheless, Kei finished with four more bites, eating even the core. It tasted like sand. He stood there, guitar-scythe on his back and wondered why he even bothered. Why not simply eat the tree instead? It wasn't as if Death Gods needed sustenance; they had evolved above that. Perhaps the contorted limbs or parched leaves even tasted better?

Kei snapped off a twig, crunching it between his jaws experimentally. The slivers of wood were rather tasteless and most stuck between his teeth. He swallowed.

"Oi! Kei!"

The Death God turned at the sound of his name. Kinddara Guivelostain landed just behind him, folding his wings behind him until they vanished. Kei nodded in greeting.

"Not getting addicted too, are you?" Kinddara questioned fervently. His black eyes flitted furtively to the place where Kei had just taken the apple. His bandaged hands rubbed together, as if burrowing into each other.

"No," Kei sighed. He didn't really care for Kinddara, finding the smaller Death God annoying in his obsession. But Kei found himself speaking to him anyway. "Why do you eat apples if they don't taste good?"

Kinddara appeared a little confused at the question, but answered anyway, his eyes still darting among the tiny trees. "Because if I don't I'll have to stand on my head."

"But why did you start eating them in the first place?" Kei asked persistently.

Kinddara began smoothing his chain-mail shirt obsessively, ignoring where the bandages caught and hitched in the rusted garment. He didn't look up at Kei as he spoke. "I don't know; I've always been eating them. Why do you write in your Death Note?"

Kei paused, losing all argumentative momentum, even though he did have a very logical answer. He wrote in his Death Note because otherwise his life would run out, just like all the other Death Gods. But Kinddara had just equated apples to Death Notes. Did that mean that Kinddara believed he needed to eat apples to survive?

"Nevermind," Kei replied, suddenly weary. Kinddara was not the God in which Kei would find a kindred spirit. In fact, Kei was hardly sure that he would ever find someone who despised this nothingness quite like he did. Or asked as many questions.

"I think there are some more apples at the other end of the Orchard, Kinddara," he told the black-eyed Death God, even though he had no idea if there were any apples left at all. Kinddara nodded vigorously and scurried off between the trees. Kei watched for several moments, but then tore his eyes away. He did not want to watch someone else who was stuck in the same endless cycle. He felt smothered, like he was suffocating, drowning in the grayness.

But the worst part was that he was the only one who knew, despite how the entirety of existence was adrift in gray.

----K----

Kei wandered through the valley, pausing and listening to snippets of conversation between Death Gods. Vaguely, he considered joining a few, but then it passed and his feet moved again. He felt restless, but had no cause for it, and so just continued to move aimlessly through the horde. At one point, Gekki Yhuusiohuc recognized the skeletal figure with green-jeweled goggles and asked if he wanted to join in one of the many varieties of a game of chance, but Kei just shook his head and allowed his feet to continue its steps. It was mind-numbingly peaceful to simply walk, and Kei stopped thinking, letting his awareness gently slide away.

Everything was gray and infinitely boring anyway.

----K----

He stood halfway up the edge of the valley, the vantage point giving him a peerless view of the camps of the Death Gods below. He liked looking down on the others, and he caught the edge of a stray thought wondering if the King of Death felt like this too. Always above, always in charge, always… better? Kei shook his head and the notion left him. His gaze settled on a graying scythe rested to his right, the hint of blackened blood rusting into its blade.

He sighed, a deep rattling from beneath his worn shirt, realizing that his mind was again too active. It was always so much easier to simply stop thinking. But now his thoughts raced ahead and he wondered why and how the scythe had come to be there. It obviously didn't belong to anyone, but if that was the case, who had placed it there?

And the blood?

Kei suddenly felt sick, his mind whirling. He _knew_ Death Gods did not bleed, could not be killed by any weapons, and so… where had the blood come from? There was no one here but themselves, the Death Gods… no one else….

Kei looked down to find his bone fingers trembling and shaking. Why were they doing that? It was not his blood; he did not have any in his body. He looked up, unable to watch his quivering hands and became fixated by the blood on the ancient scythe.

How did Kei even know what blood was? He could not remember… his head felt too tight, his skull pressing in on him, constricting thought, tendrils of forgotten impressions just out of reach like the dull weight of some large obstacle pinning him down, holding him hostage to the grayness. Yet his sunken red eyes still watched the blood and he could not look away, his brain seizing up and freezing to a halt. _What was happening?_

He was dimly aware of his chest rattling as he drew in gasps of air, and suddenly he wondered whether the splinters of the apple tree were still there inside him, puncturing whatever lay beneath his shirt and jacket. Could he perhaps bleed if they hit him somewhere? He had felt the apple tree, and if he could feel it, wasn't it possible for it to cause him pain?

_Pain._ The memory of hurt and agony erupted, and his head throbbed. He shuddered and pulled his hands up to clutch at his skull. He knew he wasn't feeling it now, but the thought alone… his entire body had felt it before, ripped to pieces and maybe, just maybe, he had bled and there would have been liters and liters of—

"Oi."

A deep rumbling voice sounded from behind him as if from a long distance. It hardly registered.

"Kei," it said, but the sound of his name startled the paralyzed Death God and he jerked his eyes away from scythe. The pain fell away and he turned to face the voice, able to push aside his whirling thoughts for the sake of seeming normal. He smiled lightly.

"Ryuk," Kei greeted. The other Death God's face broke into a grin across his entire face, black lips stretched tight. It looked as if Ryuk had come down from somewhere behind the tips of the craggy walls of the valley. He had a large coarse blanket wrapped around most of his figure, but his head and its wild red and yellow eyes protruded out from the fibrous covering. A few bright earrings caught Kei's attention for a moment, but then he looked back into Ryuk's enormous eyes.

"You planning on doing anything interesting? Or will you just rot there like the rest of this world?" The bigger Death God looked at Kei expectantly, but Kei didn't know how to answer him. He realized that Ryuk was behaving very abnormally, and yet at the same time, his natural instincts to assimilate into every situation kicked in.

"No, of course not," Kei said confidently to Ryuk's last question. Ryuk's lips widened, showing sharp teeth, and Kei felt as if his acting had just confirmed something to the dark god. Uneasiness rose into Kei's chest, but he ignored it, keeping all hints off his skull and his body language relaxed. Kei mentally shook himself; everyone knew Ryuk was strange. Just as strange as Kinddara, with a different style. Didn't Ryuk also eat lots of apples? Kei felt himself relax internally and tried not to let the boredom show through his words. "What do you intend to do, Ryuk?"

"Oh, I've already done it, Kei," Ryuk said, his eyes glossy and almost too bright for the surrounding grayness. Kei's attention was suddenly drawn to him like a moth to flame and the uneasiness was back two-fold as if he were close to being incinerated. Ryuk leaned in closely, and Kei forced himself not to take a step backwards.

"Or… don't you remember?" Ryuk asked softly. He paused for a moment, his protruding eyes darting all over Kei's face, and then he pulled back and began laughing hysterically.

Kei felt his himself growing angry. It was obvious that Ryuk was simply messing around. There wasn't a hint of meaning in any of his random words; just the crazy talk of an outcast Death God. Annoyed, Kei turned away from the abrupt and rapid laughter and started back down the trail that had led him up to the side of the hill.

"Leaving already, Kei?" Ryuk mocked between fits of laughter. The god had stretched his wings out so he could float above the ground and his whole body shook and twisted above the air. The urge to somehow prevent the Death God from ever laughing again hardened Kei's hands into fists, but he didn't turn back, knowing that there was nothing he could do.

Kei kept walking until he was out of sight, until the emotion drifted away like it had never occurred.

----K----

Everything was gray and infinitely boring. Nothing never changed.

Kei sat playing a game with Gekki Yhuusiohuc and was cheating, like always. Each god found, bought, borrowed, won, or made their own dice. Naturally, Kei had made his and while all the bones were of the correct size and weight, how the weight was distributed meant the likelihood of getting a better throw. Kei's skull dice were more likely to land both on their left sides, the femurs with one end pointing towards the deep center of a bowel, and he had many different weights of the smaller vertebrae to use depending on the variation of the game he was playing. Kei had also nearly mastered the art of holding and throwing the dice so that they landed in the position he wanted. It was simply a matter of copying exactly the movement he had done previously to get the same throw. He was vaguely surprised that no one ever noticed or caught on to what he was doing. He tried to stay focused on the game, the dice, even the gray stone bowl, but his mind wandered like his booted feet were apt to do. If only he could control his thoughts as easily as he could his physical body.

The chance conversation he had had with the outcast Death God drifted to the forefront of his mind. He had the instinctive feeling that there was something he had missed in it, a very odd sensation to have considering it had only been a conversation with Ryuk, a Death God none really liked. So… why was his mind delving back into it, suggesting a hidden meaning or greater importance in his words? While he was glad someone had snapped him out of… Kei gasped and promptly pulled back into reality before he could recall whatever had occurred that had left such a deep residual of fear. At first, he didn't notice his opponent looking up at him oddly, Gekki's burning eyes questioning. Kei suddenly remember he was still playing a game, and quickly realized that his behavior was causing Gekki some mild concern and irritation. He looked down at stone bowl and realized that it was his turn. He flashed a sheepish and apologetic smile to Gekki and tossed his dice.

He returned back to the vague sensation of unease left in his mind. While he was glad that Ryuk had first appeared for… some reason, Kei felt a lasting irritation at what the other god had done. Kei did not appreciate being laughed at, being made fun of, and even getting a hint that he was slow and stupid. Ryuk had said something about how he, Kei, was rotting like the rest of the world, but of course, _Ryuk_ had already done something to prevent himself from being dragged along with it.

Kei felt the world shift on its axis as the thought clicked gently into the place it rightfully belonged. He felt dizzy, yet with a clarity unlike what he had ever felt before. His red gaze didn't show him the throw he had just made, and his ears didn't pick up any of the indignant sounds his opponent was making.

Thoughts swirled and coalesced like smoke in a drafty room. Kei was not the only one to see the world as gray, dead, and boring. Ryuk had somehow known that Kei was of a like mindset, and asked what he was willing to do. But if that was the case, what was it that Ryuk had already done? Kei didn't know the answer, but suddenly knew he needed to search it out. The need for discovery burned in him, and he stood abruptly from the game, his eyes flashing a dark crimson.

"Kei! Where the hell are you going?" Gekki yelled angrily. He continued shaking his dice, prepared to throw.

"The game isn't interesting if there aren't any stakes, Gekki Yhuusiohuc," Kei bit out caustically as he reached down and snatched up his dice. He didn't want to waste this moment playing asinine games with obtuse Death Gods; he had to find the outcast, learn what Ryuk had done. Perhaps it meant Kei would become an outcast as well, but it would at least be better than rotting in this forsaken realm of gray with the semblance of existence.

He left Gekki with an angry snarl still plastered across his gaunt face and fiery eyes flaring brightly under sticky strands of black hair.

Kei managed to get thirty meters away before he realized he had nowhere to look, and no one he wanted to ask.

----K----

Kei was in the Orchard, yet something was different. He walked the familiar path, winding between the stunted trees and their clawing branches. He was looking for something, he was sure, but he couldn't really remember what it was. It didn't matter, as he was positive he would know it when he saw it… so he continued to inspect each tree he passed and when nothing caught his attention, he continued on.

Kei reached the end of the Orchard, and knew he had reached his goal. He stepped off the little trail of sand and walked to the rocky edge. The last tree was there.

Just like it had been waiting for him to find it.

Kei plucked the round red apple off the tree and wondered what Ryuk would do for it.

He woke up, the wisps of the dream still cloying to his senses.

Everything around him was still gray and infinitely boring. The rocks were gray, the sky was gray, the dirt was gray, the bones were gray, even the stunted apple trees were gray.

Except he knew that apples were supposed to be red.

----K----

* * *

_First of all, thank you for reading! If you were one of the people who read the prologue when it was first posted, thank you for coming back, and I'm sorry if you believed it was a one-shot. But now it's not simply a different portrayal of Light's death... the plot thickens and to clarify, this is going to be a multichaptered fic and there's no real end in sight. Sorry if this chapter is confusing, but let me know what you think anyway. I've done WAY too much searching on these sorts of things, but if anyone knows of anywhere I can find pictures with names of other Death Gods in the Death God Realm, I would really REALLY appreciate it. I can get names, I can find pictures, but finding the name and face together is a bit more difficult than one would suppose. And then go read Tobi Tortue's chapter 1 of AfterLife... It's L's pov, and I already knew what was going to happen and it still brought tears to my eyes. It's that good. Anyway, if you already read it, good for you. Cookies if you left a review for it.  
_

_Please leave a review if you like this story too, or in fact, especially if you don't like it. Tobi Tortue is my beta, but we miss things all the time... if you see a typo, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let me know. Maybe I'll hand out cookies to people who find mistakes or leave really intelligent reviews...? _

_Oh, and feel free to guess where this is going... I think it's rather obvious, but then again, I'm the author, so let me know what you think._

_anja-chan _


	3. Chapter 2

**AfterLife**

**Chapter 2**

--K--

Kei could never remember having to search out another Death God. He just came upon one or another, never expecting it, yet never _not_ expecting to meet someone. He had always simply found himself in the same small patch of hard gray dirt as someone else, exchange a few words, maybe toss some dice, and then part ways where the cycle would repeat itself and he came upon someone else.

Until now, when every so often he felt a deep instinctual urge to find Ryuk and tear answers from his lean black body, even though Kei hardly knew what his questions were. He shook off the distressing feeling, like water sliding through his fingers until he was dry of the emotion.

Kei stepped down carefully back to the little trail. He was bored. He had been sitting on a dark charcoal gray rock—he had begun categorizing the types of gray, having nothing else to do—just above one of the many small trails that wound through the craggy hills. It was not exact, but near the place where he had been when the outcast Death God had mocked him with hints of something that might have been extraordinary only because it wasn't boring.

Kei sighed, his boots clumping up little puffs of gray dust as he walked towards the open plains. The dust settled back down and he left no footprints on the little trail, letting his mind sink away under the haze of grayness. It was so much easier.

He arrived on the flats, the ground abruptly flattening out from sharp outcroppings to dirt pounded nearly rock hard. He passed between groups of Death Gods, contemplating asking any of them for Ryuk's whereabouts. But maybe they would want to know why he was searching for him?

Despite his abrupt departure from Gekki, Kei had realized that he actually did not want to estrange himself from the other Death Gods with the uncertainties his active mind kept bringing to the surface. At least the other Death Gods provided some kind of relief from the boredom at times with their games and conversation. Not to mention that he doubted anyone besides Ryuk would understand his point of view anyway. It was depressing and frustrating for a moment, but Kei let the emotions wash over him and gently, they subsided into his subconscious. He supposed he was getting better at handling the pesky impulses that seemed to plague him.

"Kei," a voice called. He stopped walking and turned, recognizing Midora's enormous soft frame. Her fish-like eyes flicked up and down Kei's body. "You wanna join our game?"

Kei looked down at the stone basin and the rest of the group. Deridovely was sitting cross-legged and across from Midora, looking up from under his bone mask at the goggled Death God expectantly. Epranbaye, a slim and wiry light gray god, had found something interesting about Kei's boots; he was known for his quiet demeanor, and he seldom ventured out to play the games of dice. He wondered how badly Epranbaye must have been losing to Midora and Deridovely. Lyr stood behind Epranbaye, his form small and hunched, his large blue eyes watching the entire scene carefully, but he held no dice. Like Epranbaye, Lyr was another of a few Death Gods that Kei could not remember ever playing these games well.

Kei shook his head in reply, not wanting to get caught up in yet another pointless game at this moment, even though it was Midora, a Death God with ranking, who was asking. There were no stakes, and therefore he could find no reason to bring himself to gamble. His red eyes flicked back to Lyr, standing at the back of the group. He looked interested, but was not involved. "No thanks. Why don't you ask Lyr?"

As one, the sitting Death Gods minus Midora craned their heads to look back up at Lyr, even though the petit god was hardly big enough to warrant a sore neck. Midora shifted slightly, her bulbous body jiggling, to peer closer at Lyr and opened her cavernous mouth to say something, but Lyr just shook his head, his eyes still on the dice sitting in the bowl. "I can't. I don't know how to play this game."

Kei felt a sudden surreal aspect in his surroundings, and knew that that answer was not what he had expected. He wasn't sure _what _ he _had_ expected; only that something was wrong with Lyr's answer. He tried to push the unpleasant feeling away and stop thinking, but his mind snatched at the sensation, and sent its tiny gears whirring to begin unpacking the sentence for the meaning it had independently decided was there. He didn't want to think about it; he didn't want to think about anything. He grasped vainly at the threads to tie his mind back together, but apparently he wasn't as good at controlling his senses as he had previously thought. Everything around Kei seemed to shut down as his thoughts swirled in a maelstrom that threatened to suck him under. Like gasping for air, something surfaced the stormy contents of his psyche: how could Lyr not know the rules of the game? Kei had always known how to play; who was this god who did not know the rules? That made him different from everyone around the small circle; different even from himself, and he knew with a crushing sense of awareness how terribly different he was. But how could that be? Kei was always the odd one out, with his raging thoughts and carrying the crushing burden of boredom. It wasn't fair that Lyr was even stranger… did the tiny Death God even realize the significance of not knowing something in a place where there was nothing to learn? Where had Lyr come from if he did not _know_? But that meant that he must not have always been here, and Kei… did Kei even truly remember him? And was there another place he could have come from? If Lyr hadn't been here before, where was that place? Could Kei, another Death God get there? Kei's brain stretched and it was if he could feel the synaptic shocks firing painfully, trying to expand to make room for the invading thoughts and questions that only led to more questions, and the tangled emotions they bred. He was drowning, suffocating... again. He had to get himself under control, before he spiraled down too far and could not come back up from the icy depths of a confusing chaos.

Through a sheer need to continue existing, Kei blinked, the physical movement allowing him to lock his turbulent thoughts away with a violent shove. However, he kept a single tremulous thread in the form of an impression he could not entirely keep away nor look closely at.

Death Gods were possibly impermanent; Lyr could be proof of something… new? He did not know the rules. Kei left it at that, refusing to examine it any further for fear of not being able to return from his own mind again, it being a most dangerous place to wander. He looked back towards Lyr, recovering his composure, but as everyone was still considering Lyr, Kei realized not one of the other Death Gods had realized he had nearly lost himself.

His disobedient mind tried again to sink its metaphoric teeth into the problem that Lyr had caused with his existence and Kei suddenly found a solution.

"I'll teach you, Lyr. Come with me," the skeletal Death God said, red eyes glowing under green goggles. If he could get Lyr away and ask _him_ the swirling questions of… _that_, it would give him some relief. He just needed to find some answers. Lyr could prevent him from whirling out of control.

Lyr nodded in response to his offer. "Thank you." His voice was soft and clear.

Kei led Lyr away from the little group; the small Death God following like an obedient and very tame animal until the two were alone and Kei found he couldn't hold back any longer, his growing emotions apparently aware it became easier after each release and straining at the bars he had put in place like savage visceral beasts. He rounded on Lyr, his red eyes burning piercing crimson lasers into Lyr's larger blue orbs. The questions were going to suffocate and consume him if he waited any longer.

"How did you get here?" he asked, the question bursting forth, the first of the threatening tide. He was looking at Lyr and gesturing to the grayness all around them, hoping his meaning would be apparent, but the smaller god's face was a picture of confusion. Kei watched him with so much hope it was almost painful. Lyr looked up a Kei with his oddly blue eyes, pausing before responding.

"I don't know," he said carefully, and then tilted his head sideways, still peering up at Kei. The other god's bright white face tipped askew contrasted sharply with the rest of his coal black body, as if they were hardly connected. He didn't like the strange little Death God's answer… Lyr was different, wasn't he? He must be lying, and Kei would have his answer. But the small black mouth shrouded in white spoke again, drawing Kei out of his sudden dark humor. "How did you get here?"

Having the tables turned on him quite suddenly, Kei was at a loss for words for a moment, but the questions persisted, rising in his mind to fill the silence of spoken words. Perhaps Lyr really didn't know the answers either. He hadn't expected the pale god to believe they were similar when Lyr was so obviously new to the realm of the Death Gods. Kei's questions weren't getting any closer to any answers.

"I was here first… but _you_ weren't always here," Kei intoned clearly before asking his next burning question, "Where did you come from?"

There was another long pause from Lyr and Kei shifted his weight impatiently, needing the physical movement as he watched Lyr. He seemed to be looking inward, as if he had found something vaguely curious in his brain, but he replied eventually with the same clear and careful speech. "I don't know. Did you come from someplace else? Were you always here?"

"Yes, of course!" Kei fumed, his hands clenching into fists. Lyr seemed to be unfazed by his outburst, and was watching him with the same careful stare from his overlarge blue eyes in his ivory face. His interrogation was getting nowhere, and he was beginning to think that talking to Lyr had been a bad idea. The small god was childlike in his responses and it was wearing on Kei's strained psyche, the simple answers of someone who obviously didn't care about knowledge and how to attain it.

"When did you get here?" Kei asked suddenly in exasperation, the question erupting wildly from under the dark blanket he kept covering the majority of his thoughts. It was only after hearing his own scratchy voice did Kei realize that even if he got some kind of answer, he could not understand it. _When_ was a concept that did not apply to the Death God realm. Kei sagged, the enthusiasm and anger dissipating almost as soon as the realization had slapped him and it sapped the strength from his crusade.

"When…?" Kei almost didn't hear Lyr's soft voice and looked up to see Lyr deep in thought. His normally completely smooth brow showed the faint gray shadow of a wrinkle as he took a breath and began speaking in his slow and careful childlike speech, "I walked with you to this spot, I watched two games, I walked from the Orchard, I walked to the Orchard, I was standing on the other side of the valley.

"I have had that much time."

Kei stood perfectly still for a moment, then lurched forward and grabbed Lyr by the shoulders, and shaking the smaller Death God so roughly that Lyr's tiny feet left the ground. "But what about before that?" Kei asked urgently.

So close to Lyr's startled face, Kei could make out the whites surrounding Lyr's cerulean eyes, widened fully by Kei's brusque actions.

"I don't know," Lyr stated, his voice quieter, but still with the same tone he had been using during the entire conversation.

Kei set him down gently, letting his grip relax and removing his bone fingers from Lyr's slender arms slowly. There was nothing to be gained in this outpouring of anger. He decided to switch tactics, and perhaps reach his other goal.

"Do you know Ryuk?"

"Everyone knows Ryuk, Kei." Lyr said patiently, as if Kei were the child now. The black god cocked his ivory face, and Kei realized he was going to say more. "But I think I have never seen him."

Then how would you know him? Kei thought instinctively, but the answer came to him almost before the thought was finished. It wasn't as if he could remember a distinct encounter with Lyr either, and yet… he had already known his name and nothing about how Lyr acted surprised him even if he found it annoying. Come to think of it, how well did Kei himself know Ryuk? That single conversation was the only memory he had of the tall outcast with bright eyes. Kei let out his breath slowly before inhaling and beginning, finding himself speaking slowly, sorting out his thoughts as he spoke to the smaller god. "I think I have met him only once. But I would like to again."

Lyr did not reply and Kei guessed that Lyr's attention was at its end. He supposed it didn't matter; Lyr may have some strangeness about him, but not only did Lyr himself not see it, he didn't seem to care either.

So he was surprised when Lyr's voice broke through his inner musings.

"I think that it would take me longer to walk to the Orchard than it would for you to walk to the Orchard."

Kei sighed, a mixture of disgust and boredom. The conversation with Lyr had only disheartened him; it was obvious that the only one he could speak to on equal terms was Ryuk, but the clever god was nowhere to be found. Seeing as how Lyr was no longer worth talking to, Kei decided to make his departure. He might as well search for Ryuk. He turned to go.

"That… that is time."

It took a moment for Kei to realize what Lyr was saying. The concept of time was difficult to comprehend, his mind wanting to wrap around it, but finding that hours and minutes kept slipping through into days and years and out of his head completely. There simply was no time in the barren world of the Death Gods. But distances… there were those, and Kei supposed that there was a longer and shorter, perhaps a more and a less time, if he compared the length of his stride… well, of course Kei would be faster, but speed depended on distance over time. How long to get there? He knew speed, so why was time so… foreign? His head hurt, his skull constricting the thoughts that threatened to engulf him and spill out the crevices of his eyes. Kei shut his eyes tightly for a moment, knowing only that the small red orbs would extinguish before he rekindled them by opening his eyes. He did so, and found himself looking straight at Lyr, the small pale figure hunched and looking as if time were a concept he pointed out everyday. Did the small god really understand what he was saying? Was he able to grasp such an intangible concept that Kei could not? Would he understand anything Kei put to him?

Would he understand how Kei felt about the terrible grayness, the maddening obsession he had with finding out what Ryuk had done to keep it at bay? Could Lyr perhaps be the kind of kindred spirit in a Death God that he had been looking for?

There was only one way to find out. He would have to tell Lyr what he knew, what he guessed, and hope that in the process Lyr could tell him something in return. Otherwise, he was pretty sure the grayness would swallow him whole and he would never be able to leave the confines of his hazy mind filled with questions and no answers.

"You're not going to teach me the game, are you?" Lyr asked quietly. Kei shook his head, feeling a sudden pull of excitement at the task ahead of him. His jawbones ground into a slight smile.

"No, I'm not," he said watching the little god carefully, "But I'll teach you something else.

"We're going to the Orchard."

--K--

They reached the barren Orchard, but unlike the last time he had traveled to the place, Kei had been watching the length of his strides and was comparing them to Lyr's. The smaller Death God took about three steps for every two that Kei took, but he walked _faster_ and they reached the Orchard together. Kei continued on near the end of the Orchard, nearly believing he would find a shiny red apple at the end of the grey trees.

Of course it wasn't there. Everything was still gray.

Kei stopped next to a lightning-bolt shaped tree, sharp points sticking out at nearly every angle. But there was a very small gray lump near the base that had caught Kei's eye and he carefully extricated it from the tree and held it up to Lyr, waiting for a reaction. Would Lyr think the apple was strange?

"No thank you." Lyr said politely, looking at the apple as if it were more akin to a stone that Kei was showing him.

"Why not?" Kei realized that it might be harder than he thought to teach Lyr. The Death God didn't even understand that the apple was a teaching tool, and not a food offering. But then again, if offered an apple, why didn't he want to eat it?

"They don't taste very good." Yes, Kei also thought that, and everyone knew that… but in Lyr's description of the things he could remember doing, eating an apple had not been one of them.

"Have you ever eaten one?" he asked gently, trying to coax the correct answers from Lyr's blue eyes.

Lyr paused, and displayed the now familiar tilt of his head. "No."

"Then how do you know?" Kei asked, trying to contain his growing anticipation and keep calm when asking questions.

"Everyone knows."

"If they taste bad and everyone knows this, then why do some Death Gods eat apples?" Kei persisted.

"I suppose they don't mind the taste." Lyr began to look bored. Kei was getting frustrated. Why wasn't Lyr _thinking_ about it?

"Does this apple look right?" Kei asked finally, his anger beginning to show through in the brusqueness of his question.

Lyr paused, and then answered while nodding, "Yes."

"Why?" Kei asked intently. His eyes narrowed into little points of dark crimson.

"It looks dead." Lyr still looked bored, but Kei suddenly felt victorious; Lyr had just handed him the right question to ask.

"If this apple is dead, then what does an apple that is alive look like?"

This was it. Kei scrutinized the other god intently, Lyr's every blink, the slight shift of his head, the way his forehead gently wrinkled in confusion. Kei could practically see the wheels and cogs beginning to twist and turn inside Lyr's head and he couldn't prevent his jaws from opening into a grin. His eyes glowed a deeper red and brighter, reflecting back nearly purple in the depths of Lyr's blue eyes. Lyr was thinking hard, probably just beginning to hit upon the idea that Kei had already come across. Kei could barely wait for a reply without shaking the smaller Death God into giving him the answer.

"I don't know," Lyr said simply, in the same tone he had always been using. Kei took a step back, suddenly furious. Lyr probably hadn't even been thinking about it but because he was new and different, he _must _know the answer.

"Why not?" Kei asked, his eyes narrow and his voice menacing. Perhaps Lyr was lying? He _had_ to know the answer! He was smart enough to understand _time_; he should understand what apples were supposed to be like. If Lyr could understand more than Kei, although the skeletal god hated admitting the possibility of something like that, than at least he should understand the things Kei had already figured out on his own. In respect to the concepts they could grasp, they weren't dissimilar. Kei felt cheated; Lyr should have had the answer.

"I don't think that is something everybody knows," Lyr replied, his voice never losing the quality of softness.

"_I_ know," Kei hissed, still angry, but beginning to lose some of his fire. Perhaps it was pointless after all.

"What does an apple that is alive look like?" Lyr asked curiously, his big eyes rolling around in their sockets as if unsure on what object to focus on, despite the apple still in Kei's hand.

Kei looked down at the pitiful illusion of an apple, thinking of the differences. "It's red and ripe, and round and…."

Kei looked up to see Lyr nodding in agreement. Was the Death God really agreeing with him? Did he really understand or _know_? Kei's last word came out nearly a whisper.

"…Juicy."

"You are right," Lyr said, as if he had never said he didn't know what an apple should be like. He paused for a moment and cocked his head, letting his eyes focus on Kei's before adding, "And I think they are sweet."

For a moment, Kei couldn't move. He had been right; he would succeed. "How do you know?" he asked, sinking into calm and feeling confident that he would continue to be successful. With this confirmation, it was only a matter of time before he got to the answers and he could take whatever knowledge he wanted. And it all began with a single apple.

"You told me… how do you know?" Lyr asked, apparently confused.

"No, I mean about the apples being sweet," Kei retorted, guiding Lyr gently towards the answers he wanted.

"It only makes sense."

"No, it doesn't! None of this makes sense! Why do Death Gods eat apples?!" Kei shouted, taking a step forward. Perhaps he needed to drive the point home first. Lyr may know that apples are sweet, but he had no concept of how it was important… or perhaps he knew, but didn't care?

"They are addictive." Lyr had stated another obvious and well-known fact.

"You're missing my point! Why do webegin eating them in the first place?!" Kei argued, feeling his confidence beginning to ebb away. The victorious feeling was being lost, swallowed up by the nothingness, but unlike every time before, Kei didn't want to lose this emotion. He liked it, feeling the smug satisfaction of… winning. He scrabbled at trying to keep the feeling.

"You tell me. You were always here," Lyr said quickly.

"No, I wasn't!" Kei shouted, trying to keep his emotions intact, but it was now growing to include those emotions he didn't want. Fear, anger, and knowing that soon he may fall under the nothingness and sink into _un-_knowledge.

It took a few moments for Kei's own mind to catch up with what he had just spoken. He paused and considered his own words. It suddenly seemed so _obvious_. Lyr was nothing different, nothing special, and perhaps Kei's only great attribute was his mind and how he thought. There was something about the Death God Realm… Kei himself must possess all the knowledge himself subconsciously. He just needed to find a way to unlock it. The Death God Realm… the inhabitants lost their emotions, their ideas, anything that made them something other than the nothingness. But that had not always been the case. Kei was suddenly overpoweringly convinced that he had not always been wandering these arid plains full of gray. For if he knew what boring was, then he must have experienced something else. He knew what excitement meant, understood the meanings behind multiple lexicons of describing emotions. He had been trying to find something, pull it out of Lyr, but he hadn't realized that it was there inside his own mind. And that made even more sense. After all, _he_ had come to these conclusions on his own. His dream… the knowledge was all there. And if Lyr had been able to uncover some new information, it was probably hidden away in every Death God that walked the flats which meant….

"I think there was a time when none of us were here," Kei said quietly.

"How many times do you think you could have walked to…" Lyr asked, looking around. He seemed to have taken what Kei had said and either ignored it or run too far ahead for Kei to immediately follow. Kei waited, trying to be patient and believing that he would understand. Lyr pointed to a craggy outcropping at the side of the valley, finishing his sentence, "That rock and back between now and the time there was no one."

"I'm not sure; I have always seen others here," Kei answered honestly. And he understood that Lyr was trying to figure out time again. Distance and numbers… since the beginning of everything? Could that be done?

A faint shadow appeared on Lyr's white forehead, signaling that he was deep in though. Kei waited anxiously for an answer.

"Then you were probably not the first here," Lyr said simply. Kei blinked. He could have figured that out… but he hadn't though about it. Still, that wasn't what was important.

"Then where were we before now?"

"I think the King of Death was the first one here." Obviously, Lyr was no longer paying attention to the important things. Kei found himself growing angry again, but remembered the numbness of un-knowledge. Both of them had to work around the dampening effect of the Death God Realm. Kei took a deep breath.

"Maybe we just _weren't_ before," Lyr continued, answering Kei's question. It was not the answer he wanted to hear.

"But you can't just get something from nothing," Kei argued. Obviously, _something_ must have come before or they wouldn't be having this discussion. He found himself gesturing angrily around himself with both arms.

"Where else is there?" Lyr looked pensive and Kei paused in mid-gesticulation.

Of course. Why hadn't he seen it before? Perhaps he needed someone to ask _him_ the right questions…. Yes, he would keep Lyr around. Kei's red eyes squarely met Lyr's blue ones, a broad grin widening his jaws, making his sharp teeth separate. He felt like he wanted to laugh… truly he felt on the verge of something _interesting_.

"The Human Realm."

--K--

* * *

_Oh my God, I'm so glad Tobi Tortue FINALLY finished her chapter... if she takes this long for the next chapter, I'm just gonna post for you guys without waiting for her. Please drop a review here before heading over there and if you came from there, you can still leave a review. Yes, one for each of us. They are separate stories. Thank you! Hope you enjoyed it. :)_

_And OH! After purchasing my very own How to Read 13, I realized that Kinddara (from Ch. 1) was a bit different from how I imagined... but, well, just pretend that the violence comes from being OCD... and there might be some gender confusion there as well... c'mon, wouldn't you be angry?_


	4. Chapter 3

**AfterLife**

**Chapter 3**

----K----

"I need to see the User's Guide," Kei told Armonia Jastin Beyondllemason. The bejeweled Death God squinted at Kei carefully from where he sat on a chair fashioned from human skulls.

"The User's Guide? Well, I don't have one for you, Kei," Jastin answered haughtily. "I may be the King of Death's right hands, but I'm not in charge of the books." Jastin looked down and began inspecting a large emerald and gold ring on his bone finger, efficiently ignoring Kei. Apparently, Kei was not entirely on the Death God's good side, and he supposed he should let Jastin win a few games next time they played.

The impatient Death God heaved a rattling sigh. He would have to resort to bribery, but it wasn't like he hadn't guessed he would. The Jeweled Skeleton was moderately intelligent and knew the rules better than anyone else besides the King of Death, but never gave anything out for free. Hence the inordinate amount of treasure Jastin had collected.

"Well, I just happen to have a ruby that I won off of Gukku…" Kei began lazily, producing the blood-red jewel from a pocket and fingering it carefully. Jastin's eyes shot up and he seemed to watch it hungrily. "…But I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it yet."

Kei bit back his urge to laugh. Jastin was in the palm of his bony hand, his eyes locked onto the big ruby.

"If only I had a User's Guide..." He trailed off purposefully, letting Jastin fill in the rest.

"Well, I _do_ know that Sidoh still has one. He got one from the King of Death after Ryuk took his Death Note, you know? I bet if you find him—"

"Ryuk took his note?" Kei interrupted. Was everything somehow connected? He had come looking for a User's Guide to see how he could get to the Human Realm, and now another reference to Ryuk, the outcast?

"Yeah," Jastin said irritably. He seemed to be growing grumpier with every passing moment that Kei kept the gleaming jewel from him. Kei figured it was better to be on the good side of the Death God ranked number two than pester him about Ryuk. After all, going to the Human Realm should solve his mysteries and he wouldn't need Ryuk at all. Not to mention that a god with a penchant for rule-breaking would not be Armonia Jastin Beyondllemason's favorite conversation topic.

"Thanks," Kei said, tossing the jewel to his fellow skeletal god who snatched it up greedily, "I'll see if I can find Sidoh and I'll even return the book when I'm done."

"You're a good god, Kei," Jastin mumbled, his eyes never leaving the ruby. Kei smiled and left, knowing that if he put the word out, the perpetually cowardly Sidoh would find him.

----K----

"Here you go, Kei," Sidoh said. He held out the User's Guide, the dusty black cover worn, but blank in Sidoh's insectlike fingers. His eyes darted around their surroundings, before settling on Kei, looking urgent. "I heard you were looking for this, so I thought I'd save you some trouble."

"That's thoughtful of you, Sidoh," Kei replied smoothly, smiling to show his sharpened teeth. He couldn't help but enjoy intimidating the other Death God when it was this easy and his emotions were so easily produced. It also had the added benefit of ensuring more quick responses when Kei needed something done, like getting his hands on a User's Guide.

Kei reached out and took the slim book carefully, noticing how Sidoh nearly flinched away pathetically. He tucked it securely into his belt and strode off, one hand idly fingering his scythe-guitar.

He knew without looking that Sidoh was relieved to see his retreating back.

----K----

There weren't so many rules as there were several ways of wording the rules so that the Death Gods would not find any loopholes in them. Or, Kei realized wryly, the majority of the other Death Gods would only understand one of the many ways they were worded… the King of Death was probably trying to keep his bases covered. Kei let out a short laugh, flipping the page.

There. His answer would lie on the next few pages.

_A Death God must not stay in the human world without a particular reason. Conditions to stay in the human world are as follows:_

Kei skimmed down the rules quickly, his scarlet eyes landing on the last one.

_3. When a Death God stalks an individual with an intention to kill them, as long as it is within 82 hours of haunting them, the Death God may stay in the human world._

Kei grinned. Venturing into the Human Realm would be nearly as simple as watching it from afar. All he had to do was kill someone after stalking them before the 82 hour time limit was up. Basically, it was a free ticket to a world he believed held all the answers, and he only stood to gain some extra longevity from it. He felt like it was too easy, but pushed the thought away. This is what Death Gods did… of course it wouldn't be difficult.

He read through the rest of the Guide Book anyway, memorizing and cataloguing the rules into the back of his skull. Maybe they would come in handy later, and certainly it was easier than trying to think about anything else. The knowledge of the Death Notes and how to use them seemed perfectly clear, not like… he stopped himself before he unwittingly stepped back into the underlying murky mire of his current peaceful mindset.

----K----

He had agreed to meet Lyr at one of the lookout points down into the Human Realm. Kei could never remember having visited it before, but of course, he knew how to find it. He didn't think about why. He crossed the valley, running into Jastin on his way. Well, Kei mused, he had seen the glittering god from quite a distance and headed towards him, even though he had been forced to deviate slightly from his course. He had returned the User's Guide, which had earned him a glance of appreciation or a sizing up… Kei hadn't been quite sure, but both counted as compliments in his mind.

He bent around the last stony outcropping, and the desert stretched out before him. Rocky spheres peppered the sand, cracking and crumbling under the weight of the cloying atmosphere. Everything was grey and nondescript until he passed around the side of the first sphere and found Lyr peering into something vaguely mirror-like. The side of the rock had been shattered away, and it was like looking into the sparkling center of a geode.

Kei tore his eyes from the shining images, and focused on Lyr. He was crouching, his pale hands over his black knees, and disconcerting blue eyes rotating to spotlight on Kei.

"What's it like?" Kei asked, finding it difficult to meet Lyr's eyes and feeling drawn to the mirror-world of the humans instead.

"I'm not sure yet," the wiry god answered, then he too concentrated on the shifting images in front of both of them.

If was quiet for a moment as both watched the scene unfold before them. There were people walking by under large grey-green umbrellas, some passing through glass doors, some continuing along the wet pavement that glared sunlight back up. It was colorful, but not quite the same as the red apple from his dream… almost muted somehow. It wasn't quite disappointing, but just not what he expected and Kei realized that was bad. He had been relying on his unspoken emotions and unconscious expectations the whole time. A few people wandered out of the store, holding paper cups of something that steamed foggily in the morning. He wondered what it was, and saw them bring the cups to their lips, sipping hesitantly. He wanted to be there, surrounded by it, instead of just watching though. Did Lyr want that as well?

"I'm going to the Human Realm," he stated casually, glancing over to watch Lyr's reaction. The pale face turned quickly to look at him, ebony hair shifting, and eyes slightly wider in astonishment. Kei smiled.

"Me too." Lyr was still watching him, but now had a defiant glint to his eyes, replacing the widening.

"Do you know how?" Kei felt like he was testing the smaller god. Again, the skeletal god was asking the questions even though he knew more of the answers.

"There is an entrance…" Lyr began, then hesitated, unsure of what it meant or where it was, Kei couldn't be entirely positive.

"Yes, there is," he acknowledged, before continuing, his tone almost bragging, "I know where it is and the conditions for using it."

"What are the conditions?" Lyr asked, his monotone belying the fact that it was actually a question.

"When a Death God stalks a human with the intention to kill them, they can stay in the Human Realm for up to 82 hours before killing them," Kei pronounced.

"How do you know?" A little resentfulness laced his monotone this time as he looked away, and Kei held back a smile. Apparently, Lyr didn't like simply being told the answers as much as Kei enjoyed telling them.

"I read it the User's Guide." Kei nearly smirked. His simplistic answer would irritate likely irritate Lyr, and he was beginning to realize it was a pastime he relished.

"Oh," Lyr stated simply, and Kei suddenly felt like he had lost something. Lyr hadn't seemed to care and he certainly wasn't paying much attention to Kei anymore. It was just when Kei thought he nearly had the slight Death God figured out when he acted in a way completely unexpected.

"I'm going now," Kei stated loudly, beginning to turn and walk away. Yes, the images of the small store selling hot drinks was interesting, but Kei would rather _be_ there. And Lyr was annoying him with his uncategorical presence that could ignore his own. But after Kei's exclamation, Lyr jumped up and scurried to his side, his slight figure hunched in his usual style of walking.

Saying nothing, Kei found a smile nevertheless creep onto his face. He was the focus again. Lyr may be odd, but he was intelligent and he had chosen to follow the skeletal god. Kei was leading them on to new discoveries, and that felt right.

Kei left the desert and wound his way through half the grey flats before climbing up one of the many little trails on the side of the valley. They passed no one either coming of going on their way up through rocky outcroppings and rusting metal, a fact that seemed vaguely important. Why did all the Death Gods _want_ to stay here? In this greying world of boredom? He shrugged it off—it was their loss—and focused on the path ahead and Lyr at his side. The black and white god was taking two steps to his every one, doing his best to keep up. Kei increased his stride by half an inch, nothing noticeable to Lyr, but it forced the smaller god to struggle to stay next to him. Kei wasn't sure why, but the thought appealed to him. The trail led them to the mouth of a small cave, but after entering, Kei realized it was much larger inside than he had imagined. Something strange echoed from a corner, and he thought he felt the barest hint of a wind, but then it was gone and couldn't quite remember what it had felt like. He passed quickly by some rusty chains and graying bones—perhaps relics taken from the Human Realm, but discarded on the way out? He spotted a staircase at the end of the cavern and knew it would be impossible for them to walk two-abreast down it. Kei naturally took the lead with his longer strides, spiraling down the darkened stairs without a second thought. Lyr followed behind him, hardly making a sound.

It began to get brighter, the further down they traveled. Kei suddenly realized he couldn't make out the sound of his own boots either; some kind of white noise had crept up on him without him noticing. They continued walking, and Kei felt a low tremor shake the stairway, murmuring through his joints. A wind rustled by them for a moment, then was gone. The light grew brighter, and the noise harsher. Kei was picking up individual crashes of sound and flashes of light reflecting and refracting off the cold stone walls.

And then he saw it below him, the glare immense and powerful. Nothing softened the din of the gateway, and Kei finally stopped on the little rocky ledge. The sensation of it was incredible, unlike anything Kei had ever experienced. It was a pure rush of stimulation, his senses used to nothing but gray and silence.

He turned back to Lyr, the light bouncing off his black skin and through his cerulean eyes.

"Wait until I completely disappear before you enter," he commanded. Kei didn't want the smaller Death God to ruin his experience by crashing into him as he descended into the Human Realm. It had to be perfect. Lyr nodded his compliance and Kei turned back around.

He stood above the whirling maelstrom of magic, harsh echoes and deafening booms crackling out like thunder. But now that he was on the edge, he realized the vortex seemed to swallow up the sound and light it was creating as well. Outside the little cave, there had been no evidence of the power held within. Just a small step off the ledge and he would be able to leave the boredom, the greyness, the lifeless eternity behind him. He would begin to unlock the mysteries of the entire existence of the Death Gods. And, Kei's mind brought forth, whatever Ryuk had been hinting at. The answers were coming to him.

He jumped, unfurling his wings so that he hung suspended over the gateway for what seemed like an eternity. Then he fell, folding his wings to his side.

Light swirled and coalesced around him, wind buffeted him from all angles, sound echoed from all sides, and his sense of balance suffered an extreme violation. Kei closed his eyes, shutting off the bright pinpricks of red, but it did little to ease the sensation of falling violently, or being pulled by his folded wings down, down, down into the confusing mess of another world.

Then it all stopped and he found himself quite still, standing on the top of a building. It was smooth and clean, the wind whistling coldly around him, through his mirage-like body. The clouds scudding high overhead were tinged orange and pink. Below him stretched a vast array of shining skyscrapers, not quite grey, not like the dust and rocks of the world he was accustomed to. No, this was entirely different, and incredible; Kei had never guessed that anything could be so achingly beautiful. He cast his laser-like eyes down the thirty stories or so below him. The streets were busy with cars and humans bustling along, places to go, lives to live, and Kei watched it all as the sun cleared the horizon. The world here moved and changed, and it had only taken him his first three seconds in the Human Realm to realize what made it so very different from the Death God Realm.

It was alive.

He waited several minutes, just basking in the feeling of being somewhere else. He was also waiting for Lyr, but after a while, it became apparent that the other god was not coming. He frowned slightly, but quickly stopped. If Lyr had gotten scared and decided not to make the leap of faith, Kei would just move on without him. It suddenly didn't matter anymore.

Kei stretched out his wings, and leapt from the building, spiraling down to just above street level. He needed to find someone interesting enough to stalk, someone he was sure would move around constantly so that Kei could gain a better understanding of humans and their world. And maybe that would answer his questions about Death Gods as well. He didn't remember ever seeing a world this stunning before, so perhaps he really hadn't been here… and then he wondered what apples were like. Were they red? Were they sweet?

Kei flapped silently above the heads of the people, searching for someone who would stand out. Surely the only one that wasn't wearing a suit, the only one with hair color other than black, surely _she_ was the one to stalk and then kill. Her lifespan was so incredibly long as well… it certainly wouldn't hurt Kei to steal it from her.

Kei sank down behind the blonde woman, trailing her by foot as she walked past the building he had first stood upon. She looked up at the doors as she passed, then away hurriedly, pressing a hand on the side of her face and taking several quick steps to a nearby train station.

Yes, Kei decided. She would be the one. Sufficiently different, and already on the move to some unknown destination bound to be just as interesting as she was. Kei boarded the train with her and they headed downtown, Kei marveling at the sights and sounds of the city. Eighty-two hours seemed like plenty of time to spend following this girl, and then he could always come back and stalk another life after he killed her. Kei might never have to return to the suffocating world of grey again. The thought made him feel… like there was something caught in his ribcage, bouncing around inside him, but it felt nice. He didn't really know what to call it, but let it be, the emotion flooding out to the rest of his body.

His charge stepped off the train, and Kei followed her, phasing through several people and the vehicle's wall. Moving closer behind her, Kei saw that she was shaped… funny, in comparison to the other humans moving about. Did that also have something to do with the way she looked? It was odd though, that she would be so thin and slender everywhere except her stomach. It was probably some kind of human disease, he mused, but after glancing back up to the woman's long life span, he guessed it wasn't fatal.

Well, she _would_ die soon, but it wouldn't be from whatever was ailing her. Kei just hoped she would do something interesting, hopefully lead him to some kind of useful clue to his existence.

She passed several stores, keeping her eyes on the ground, carefully not making eye contact with any other humans. Kei however, let his eyes rove over the multitude of brightly colored items inside the little shops and wished she would stop for a moment. What if something in there was a key to unlocking his mind?

The human didn't slow however, and moved forward, quickening her pace almost as if to thwart Kei. He wondered if she could somehow sense his presence even though he was completely invisible. Shrugging to himself, the goggled god spread his wings and cruised just above her head. It was better than walking.

She reached a small graveyard, the little gray stones oddly reminiscent of the Death God Realm, only shinier and lined in neat rows. Kei frowned to himself. He didn't really think he would find his answers in a graveyard… after all, it was as close to the Death God Realm as he could get in this world, and he'd had enough of that boring monotony. Still, his 82 hours were already ticking away, and the chance that the woman wouldn't spend the next few days in the graveyard was high. He would just have to wait.

Bending carefully to resemble a woman twice her age, the girl lifted a pail of water and its accompanying ladle up from the end of the row and waddled with it down the line pausing only when she had found what she was looking for. Kei looked it over from behind her as she set to washing it.

_Yagami Tsuki._ Kei found the Japanese kanji easy to read, even though he knew some of the other Death Gods had difficulties with this alphabet. He watched the peculiar woman light a thin stick of incense and place it gently at the base of the stone tablet. Then she bowed her head, blond hair falling over her shoulders and hiding her face from his view. She looked back up at the grave and smiled sadly at it.

"You know, Light, I'm doing really well now, although I miss you a lot. But I have great news! You'd be so excited, I know. I went to the doctor's after I saw you last week and they said it's going to be a girl! Isn't that great? I haven't thought of a name yet, but I'll be sure to think of something you'd like. Do you think I should ask your mom to help? Or Sayu? They've both been so helpful recently…" the girl trailed off, her cheery monologue growing dimmer. "Oh, Light…."

_Raito?_ Kei wondered at the word. It sounded rather foreign to be uttered as a Japanese name. Was it even supposed to be the name of the deceased? Probably a pet name, he decided, as there was no way to get the sounds _ra-i-to _out of the kanji for _tsuki_. Humans were strange, he decided, as the girl held her face in her hands and leaked tears. Very strange. Well, she wouldn't have to be crying for long, he mused. Sooner, rather than later, she would be joining up with her beloved _Raito_ in the afterlife.

The woman rose then, wiping her tears and holding her distended stomach carefully. The now-empty wooden pail was returned to its place along with the ladle.

----K----

It was an uneventful trip home, stalking Amane Misa. The girl avoided busy places and didn't stop to talk with anyone or buy anything. She came to a house and entered, talked with the residents, ate dinner, went to her room, slept, went to the kitchen, ate some more, returned to her room, and then slept again. The woman's simple human existence was downright boring, and as much as Kei liked being in the Human Realm, he was beginning to feel anxious. Wasn't there anything he could do? Why didn't the woman go out and buy apples or something? He wanted to know if they matched his… imagination.

Technically, he could leave the small house she lived in for a short while. At the moment, everyone who lived there was asleep, deep in dreams. He didn't have to be present with her during the entire 82 hours, did he?

Still, he hated breaking his plans. He had decided to stalk her and so he would, learning everything about her that he could. So he waited, wandering the house, a veritable wraith. But nothing seemed to jump out at him as an answer of some kind. Nothing about the interior of the house surprised him, and he even found the room his quarry slept in downright familiar.

His mind leapt ahead suddenly. What if that was the point? It was familiar, thus he had been here before. Well, probably not here, but… a similar place? The fog crept in on large bear paws, swatting away the thoughts almost before they could form. It wasn't helping him think, although the fear that usually accompanied the dampening mask had yet to arrive… or else was greatly muted. He blinked, realizing the whole affair was less than he remembered. The stifling stillness that threatened to overcome him every time he wanted to simply _think_ wasn't… it just wasn't. Not that it was much easier to think, only that he was no longer suffocating under the impression of it.

He was no longer in the Death God Realm now. Was that the only thing that kept him from utilizing his mind at his full potential? Did the Human Realm open up these possibilities? A place where the greyness had lost its cloying hold?

The feeling of something ricocheting off his rib cage returned, the freedom of thought replacing his earlier boredom with the house in the dark. So, perhaps he had wandered these streets, visited a house similar to this one before. Could that be possible? If he stayed here, would be remember when and why he had been to the Human Realm before?

A light switched on, nearly blinding him as Amane Misa ran quickly down the hallway. It wasn't quite morning yet, and Kei found himself enormously intrigued in the wake of discovering his own limitless mind.

Until he heard the retching sounds she made having reached the toilet room. His previous thoughts were shoved unceremoniously out of his mind, and Kei was left with a single pervasive one. Humans were quite disgusting. Forget strange, this woman was gross.

Another light switched on, and the older woman who lived in the house also found her way to the bathroom. A quiet exchange followed, something Kei couldn't quite make out, but he didn't want to venture closer to the room. Some things were perhaps better left alone. Besides, a few moments later, both women exited the room with the flush of the toilet.

Kei followed them silently into the kitchen where the Amane Misa sat and the woman, Yagami Sachiko, began making tea.

"I hope everything's alright, Misa," Yagami Sachiko said, her face turned down to carefully measure the hot water into little cups. "You shouldn't be throwing up this far in... is this the first time since you stopped having morning sickness?"

Amane nodded, and Kei noticed that her blond hair was turning black at the roots. He felt almost cheated, realizing that she wasn't so different from anyone else; she had changed her hair color artificially. Amane Misa brushed her bangs out of her eyes before replying, "I think I stayed up too late last night or something."

Kei nearly laughed at the accusing glare the motherly woman sent to the sitting girl. Humans were so expressive. Then he realized that no one could hear him and he let himself chuckle aloud. It sounded oddly foreign in the kitchen, but no one else noticed. His charge was speaking again.

"I was thinking of names! I couldn't help it, mother," she protested, and then pouted, pushing a full bottom lip out. It suddenly reminded Kei of the color of the apple from his dream.

Yagami Sachiko smiled, but again, Kei noticed the vast range of expressiveness that humans held. Her smile was kindly, yet it couldn't completely mask a twinge of sorrow. Kei found it exhilarating, the slight differences he could read so unlike the bored and slack expressions that he found in the realm of the Death Gods.

"Did you think of anything you liked?"

Amane Misa nodded, suddenly becoming shy and almost meek. "But… but I wanted to know your opinion before I really decided. She's your granddaughter."

"Thank you, Misa," the woman replied quietly, setting the tea on the table, a cup before each of them. She sat heavily into the chair opposite the faux blond and then sat up straighter with an air that Kei decided was a fake cheeriness. In watching Amane Misa closely, Kei wondered why she didn't notice the falsity in the woman's smile. Or was Kei simply incredibly apt at reading human emotions from their faces?

Amane Misa took the teacup carefully in both hands and sipped. She set it down just as delicately, and looked across the table. Kei wondered what it tasted like.

"Mitsuki... I wanted to spell it with 'beautiful' and 'moon.' For her father…" Amane Misa trailed off, her eyes looking up under long dark lashes, and Kei guessed she was seeking approval. He wondered what for exactly, realizing that he hadn't been paying attention to the actual words of the conversation. There was too much going on in the faces of Amane Misa and Yagami Sachiko for him to focus on the words. It seemed like there was a lot of context he was missing anyway and it didn't seem integral to his quest.

Yet somehow those words managed to make Yagami Sachiko cry fat droplets of tears, patting them away with a small handkerchief. The women reached out and clasped each other's hands firmly, desperately and Amane Misa was crying too. Kei didn't understand, which was slightly frustrating, but mostly boring as the tears continue to leak from the eyes of the two humans.

"I think it's perfect, Misa, my daughter," Yagami Sachiko finally said, cupping her free hand against Amane Misa's tear-stained cheek.

"Thank you," came the reply, a sigh echoing her hiccups and sobs. She pulled out a small black and white photo, and set it out on the table between the two of them. Kei leaned over, miming the movements of the humans. Amane Misa put her other hand to her stomach, her eyes on the hazy x-ray.

"Hi there, Mistuki," she cooed.

And then it happened. A blossom of red appeared, smoke curling somewhere in and around Amane Misa's shoulders. Another smaller cloud of scarlet unfurled above the photograph, a simultaneous miniature. They swirled and fused, slowly becoming recognizable despite Kei's frantically growing horror. It was unthinkable. The crimson smoke burned with a strange inner light, and Kei wished he could reverse the process, prevent the numbers from emerging, erase the kanji letters before they formed. This couldn't be happening.

_Yagami Mitsuki,_ the Japanese kanji read, a long life numbered out below. The red characters above the photograph were identical to what was now displayed around Amane Misa's shoulders.

It was a complete bind. His mind floundered in chaos and strategic dead-ends. He had no choices. Amane Misa was suddenly untouchable. His condition for being in the Human Realm was to stalk and kill her. Her strange condition was human pregnancy, something he had never considered in the unreproductive world he knew. By the laws of the Death Gods, Yagami Mitsuki could not be killed until she was at least 780 days old. And he was especially forbidden from killing someone—however indirectly—by means other than a Death Note. And if he killed Amane Misa, Yagami Mitsuki would surely die.

He was trapped, checkmated perfectly by fate's sense of irony. What would happen now that he would be unable to fulfill his purpose in the Human Realm? He could no longer stalk Amane Misa. Was the King of Death already preparing some kind of punishment for him? Would he be locked back into the Death God Realm without hope of being allowed back out for breaking the rule?

Kei waited, a darker beast crashing around the inside of his chest with a frightening ferocity. He felt tight and stiff, unable to move fluidly, as if his joints were slowly fusing together. What would happen to him? Every moment that passed, he expected some kind of harbinger of his doom to appear. Fear trickled down his spine, blocking out even the casual voices of the two women in the room.

Kei waited.

Nothing happened.

The women left the room, laughing gently, their air one of exuberance. Kei didn't stir, making no effort to stalk or follow either of them.

Still, nothing happened.

It took Kei a long time to realize that nothing would. There was no fire and brimstone, no pain, no punishment, no messengers, no… knowledge of his illegality. It was if the King of Death didn't even know.

Kei's mind shattered like a million pieces of light unfolding. The answer was brilliant, illuminating the darker recesses of his mind, chasing back the harsh fear, replacing it with a calm and cool haughtiness that Kei found as reassuring as he did powerful.

How _could_ he know? The King of Death couldn't read his thoughts, know his every move. He wasn't omniscient.

Kei found himself laughing at the sheer simplicity of the rule of the King of Death. None of the humans noticed, of course, and he found himself laughing even more. The great many-handed black Death God was King only because no one had ever challenged him before. He had no real power beyond holding on to the spare Death Notes, a deep knowledge of the rules, and the _belief_ of the other gods. Well, Kei could easily obtain more notebooks and now had the same knowledge of the rules… and more. He knew that most of them didn't matter. Who could enforce punishment on a god? Kei was untouchable, immortal. And belief? It was easily garnered by support. What would the other Death Gods do if they knew a smidgeon of what Kei now understood? He wouldn't tell them everything he had figured out, of course, but… no, he wouldn't tell anyone anything.

Kei would do as he pleased.

And he was currently more pleased in the Human Realm.

Uttering another harsh laugh, Kei beat his wings, taking flight over the skies of Tokyo.

----K----


End file.
